When 225 last talked to local attorney Franz Borghardt, the group Baton Rouge Brunches was a fledgling idea spurred from Borghardt’s love of sampling brunch menus across the city. Today, the group is approaching 2,000 likes on its Facebook page and even has an official website where anonymous and collaborative brunch reviews are posted.
Borghardt says the growth of the group has been shocking but welcome.
“This just started as a hobby for me,” he says. “It’s just astonishing how this has turned into something so prominent in the community.”
|
|
|
In a way, Borghardt himself has turned into a sort of community brunch aficionado. The attorney says both his personal Facebook and the group’s page receive brunch inquiries daily. Borghardt’s favorite question to answer is “Where’s the best brunch in Baton Rouge?”
“I don’t have an answer for that,” Borghardt says with a laugh. “Brunch is different for everyone, so I ask a few questions like ‘What’s the first thing you think about when you think of brunch?’ And after a few questions, then I can fire back an answer about where the best brunch might be for them.”
The group’s increasing presence on social media has led to larger brunches—the average is now 30-40 people together at a local restaurant—and more collaboration with restaurants, Borghardt says.
But growth in the community isn’t just about bigger and better Sunday brunches in Baton Rouge for Borghardt. He wants to use the group for charity purposes and is working with local representatives from Susan G. Komen to create a “Brunch for the Cure,” a spinoff of the wildly successful Race for the Cure.
|
|
|
Still in early planning stages, the event will likely be held the Sunday after the local race event. If a 2017 brunch pans out, it would fall on Sunday, May 5. Brunch for the Cure would work similarly to the new event Negroni Week, and participating restaurants would donate a set percentage of their profits from the day to Susan G. Komen Baton Rouge. The event would also work in similar fashion to the races, as each participating restaurant acts as a team. Borghardt says he’s trying to work out how to allow companies to form corporate teams and even add a tier for families or groups of friends who want to participate.
Borghardt says he would like to partner with more charities in the future and has ideas for a massive brunch fest similar to The Taste of NOLA festival, but the Susan G. Komen Brunch for the Cure is this year’s priority.
Ultimately, Borghardt says the Baton Rouge Brunches goal will always be to promote local restaurants and foster closeness in the community. As the group becomes event-driven on a larger scale, he says it’s important to remember those roots.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about what’s best for the restaurant and the consumer,” Borghardt says. “That balance might be hard to strike sometimes, but I believe Baton Rouge Brunches can do it.”